Through Venice’s Changing Relationship with Water

By Jim Arvantes

Venice will continue to battle rising sea levels and an increase in corresponding floods for the next several decades, conditions that will jeopardize the long-term survivability of the city while posing an immediate threat to the beauty and splendor of the Floating City.

That was one of many pertinent messages delivered by renowned historian and author Dennis Romano, PhD., a professor emeritus at Syracuse University and one of the world’s leading experts on Venice, who spoke during a Tuesday Talk presentation at the Cleveland Park Library on March 19.

Romano, a Woodley Park resident who has held fellowships at the National Gallery of Art and the National Center for the Humanities, is the author of several books on Venice, including the recently released and highly acclaimed book, Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City (Oxford University Press, 2024).

During the Tuesday Talk, Romano said Venice eventually could be overtaken by rising sea levels unless effective counter measures and interventions are put in place to quell the rising waters.

“With the rising sea level, how are you going to save Venice?” asked Romano rhetorically. “That is going to be a tremendous issue that everyone is going to have to face.”

Venice, a city famous for its beautiful canals and waterways, is located in the northeastern part of Italy, situated in the middle of a tidal lagoon at the very northern end of the Adriatic Sea where small and large rivers empty into the area.

The city itself is comprised of 117 small islands separated by canals and linked by bridges. A reverse S-shaped Grand Canal cuts through the heart of the city, dividing Venice into two parts.

Palaces, churches, hotels and other structures finished in Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance styles line both sides of the Grand Canal, giving the city a majestic and almost magical feeling of breath-taking wonder.

The Lagoon City has confronted floods since the fifth century. But the problem has become more frequent and acute in recent years, a result of rising water levels and building projects that have constricted the flow of water.

“Water used to naturally flow into tidal flats near the mainland,” explained Romano. “It now comes up against concrete walls and the only place it can go is up.”

Romano showed a picture of a bellhop standing in knee-deep water in one of Venice’s swankiest hotels, demonstrating the danger posed by rising sea levels in recent years.

To combat the problem, officials have placed mobile gates on the floor of the lagoon at three inlets where the open sea pours into the lagoon. When a high tide is predicted, officials pump air into the gates, raising them up to block the ascending water.

“They are already predicting by the end of this century the gates will not be high enough because of the rising sea level,” commented Romano.

Some officials have proposed surrounding Venice with levies—similar to the ones used in New Orleans – to pump water in and out of the lagoon.

Romano told his audience that the very idea is “horrible to think about,” because of the ugly, obtrusive nature of the structures.

“But it may be the only way they are going to be able to save Venice,” he said. 

Centuries of Rich History

Romano’s latest book, Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City, has generated praise from many quarters, including the Wall Street Journal, The Economist and The Washington Post, which hailed the book “as the best single-volume guide on the city’s past.”

The Wall Street Journal praised the book for “presenting fresh points of view.” And the Economist called the book a “triumph,” saying it “weaves a great deal of social and economic history into a broadly chronological narrative.” 

Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City covers 1,600 years of Venetian history. Romano acknowledged that he could not cover 1,600 years during a Tuesday Talk so he focused on Venetian attitudes towards water, and how those attitudes have changed through the centuries.

Amphibious Civilization 

Not surprisingly, water has played a profound role in nearly every facet of Venetian life, creating a profound sense of identity. But water has also brought its own set of problems and challenges through the centuries. Venice is, according to one prominent historian, an “amphibious civilization,” requiring its citizens to learn how to adjust to water. 

Water has long served as a major mode of Venetian transportation, socialization and communication. Romano showed pictures of paintings from centuries ago depicting brides being rowed across the Venetian lagoon in boats to attend their church weddings. He also showed pictures of centuries-old paintings of Venetians going to visit friends and relatives by way of the water.

Every year, Venetians crossed make-shift bridges made of boats lashed together to get over the water to make pilgrimages to the Basilica del Redentore, or II Redentore, and the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute which were both built in the 1600s. Each church was built to commemorate the end of a different plague.

II Redentore was built to give thanksgiving for an end of a plague that ravaged Venice from 1575 to 1576, killing about 46,000 people, roughly 25 percent of the city’s population. Santa Maria della Salute was built to commemorate the end of another plague that also killed thousands of people between 1630 and 1631. 

Many Venetians today still make pilgrimages to both churches, setting aside a day in July to make a pilgrimage to the II Redentore to commemorate the end of the plague in 1576, and another day in November to pray and give thanks at the Santa Maria della Salute for the end of the plague that occurred in the 1630s. 

Like their ancestors, many Venticians still walk over make-shift bridges – pontoon bridges — on Nov. 21 to reach the Santa Maria della Salute to pray and give thanks, thus honoring a scared tradition that began centuries ago.

Water also influenced Venetian art and architecture. Venetians used canvas for their paintings – canvas they obtained from their sail-making industry.

“Canvas allowed them to make gigantic paintings because they could sew together huge numbers of canvas,” Romano said.

Venetians learned early in their history that they needed to build extremely long and thin structures while making sure the weight-bearing walls did not face the water.

A Divine Source

Romano said Venetian attitudes towards water involved four distinct and different stages. In the Middle Ages, Venetians saw water as a divine source, providing security and defining their identity. Back then, water was their very life blood, according to Romano.

Then, in the early modern period – 400 to about 1800—Venetians thought of water as a problem that needed solving, specifically river water. In the third period, 1840 to about 1950, water was viewed as an obstacle to be overcome.

Finally, from 1950 until today, the so-called modern era, sea water poses an existential threat to the city.

The first period is easily the longest span of time, stretching from about 400 to 1400. During this period, Venetians saw water as their protection and salvation. Every other city in Italy and Europe had walls to keep opposing armies out. 

But for the Venetians, the water served as a natural barrier, making it unnecessary for them to spend money building and maintaining walls. With their natural fortress, the Venetians considered themselves the new Israelites – God’s chosen people. 

One 15th century Venetian humanist said, “No walls, no gates, no fortifications.”

“This was a point of pride for the Venetians because they were unique in that sense,” explained Romano.

Invading Armies

Venice was nearly conquered twice during the Middle Ages. In 810, Charlemagne’s son Pippin, who ruled Italy as a King from 781 to 810, invaded Venice but his army lacked boats, making it impossible for the army to get across the water and capture the Floating City.

“Had Venice been conquered it would have been absorbed into the Holy Roman Empire, and probably would not have become a significant city,” said Romano.

The Genoese launched an invasion of Venice from 1379 to 1381 and unlike Pippin’s army, the Genovese arrived with boats and were able to get into the lagoon. 

The Venetians blocked the lagoon channels with their own boats and pulled up the channel markers, making it impossible for the Genoese to determine the depth of the water in many places. As a result, their boats ran aground in shallow water, dooming the invasion. (Napoleon’s armies finally conquered Venice in 1797.)

During this first 1,000 year period, the Venetians became wealthy by harvesting salt from the sea and selling it to other parts of Italy and Europe. The Venetians were able to ship the salt up the Poe River to major cities such as Milan.

They used salt as a political and economic weapon, withholding the sale of salt from areas and countries that were considered unfriendly.

“Once they could not produce enough salt in the lagoon itself, they start importing salt from all over the Mediterranean,” explained Romano. 

The Venetians stored the salt in giant warehouses, before putting it on boats and taking it up the rivers where it was eventually loaded onto pack animals for transportation across the Alps to other European countries.

River Waters

In the 1400s, water emerged as a problem for the Venetians when the river waters, carrying silt – mud and sand — from the Alps, caused the entry ways to the lagoon to fill up with silt, making it difficult for ships to get through. (The Alps are about 65 miles northwest of Venice and can be seen looming in the distance on a particularly clear day in the city.)

The Venetians built jetties in the Adriatic Sea to increase the flow of water and to thus sweep away the mud and sand. But that process led to the pooling of water and the creation of sandbars, attracting mosquitoes and malaria, and forcing many residents to flee the immediate area. 

The Venetians eventually built dikes and made cuts in the land, diverting the rivers and mitigating the silt problem, probably saving the city from becoming land locked.

Confronting a Crossroads

As the 19th century dawned, Venice, like many other western cities, found itself at a crossroads, questioning whether it should industrialize.

“Do we become a part of the modern world?” asked Romano.

The Venetians answered that question by building a railway bridge connecting Venice to the mainland of Italy in January of 1846, putting a definitive and symbolic end to the Lagoon City’s isolation. For some Venetians, the railway represented an end to Venetian security even though artillery of that era could easily traverse the lagoon, striking Venice.

Even today many Venetians insist that Europe joined Venice when the railway was built, remarked Romano, sparking laughter from the audience. Romano summed up the Venetians’ attitude by saying, “We didn’t join Europe, Europe joined us.”

With the building of the railway, the Venetians realized they needed to link the main port at San Marco, a district in the center of Venice, with the railroad, located miles away. They accomplished this task by building a new port facility near the railroad, making it possible for ships to dock at the port facility and unload their merchandise onto railroad cars.

To facilitate the flow of tourist and other pedestrian traffic, the Venetians built two more bridges across the Grand Canal – the Ponte degli Scalzi and the Ponte dell’Accademia Bridge. Both bridges added to the Rialto Bridge, the only bridge crossing the Grand Canal until then.  

To further help the flow of pedestrian traffic, the Venetians filled in a “huge number of canals,” and widened streets, said Romano.

“Anywhere you walk in Venice, if you see a street called Rio Tierra it is an in-filled canal,” he said.

Romano also told the audience that “anytime you walk down a really big, wide street in Venice, you are walking down a 19th century street. You are not walking down a medieval street.”

Clear and Present Danger

During the so-called modern era — 1950 until today — water remains both a problem and a serious threat. But it is sea water – not river water – that now poses an imminent danger, Romano stressed.

Romano described an infamous and devastating flood that occurred in 1966, a historic flood caused by a combination of factors that included high tides, overflowing rivers and a harsh sirocco wind. The flood ruined homes and businesses and breached the city’s tiny barrier islands, severely damaging the islands’ farms and beaches in the process.

The high waters and wind accompanying the flood also sent waves crashing into Doge Palace, nearly destroying a masterpiece of Gothic architecture and an iconic symbol of Venice.

That flood underscored the dangers of rising sea levels, and, in particular, the need to protect the barrier islands “from being washed away,” which prompted the building of modern sea walls, said Romano.

Ironically, Venice will likely become land locked over the coming millennia, a result of siltation carried by rivers flowing down from the Alps and into Venice, said Romano. It is a reversal of what happened to the fabled city of Atlantis, which, according to legend, sank.

“Will there be humans here to see (Venice becoming land locked)?” asked Romano. “I don’t know. But siltation is going to be the problem.”

Editor’s Note: To learn more about Professor Dennis Romano’s new book, Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City, please go to the following website: https://www.amazon.com/Venice-Remarkable-History-Lagoon-City/dp/0190859989